


Perchance to Dream

by elrey



Category: Celebrity - NSYNC (Album), JC Chasez - Fandom, Justin Timberlake - Fandom, NSYNC
Genre: Gen, I accidentally got in my feelings while writing this, JC is sleepy Justin thinks it's cute, Joshtin, M/M, MMC to post-Celebrity era, through the years saga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 22:14:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrey/pseuds/elrey
Summary: JC's sleepiness over the years, through the eyes of Justin. G-rated Joshtin.





	Perchance to Dream

He noticed JC’s impressive ability to sleep in any environment during his first week on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. He entered the noisy, crowded tutoring room for his mandated three hours of schooling and there JC was, slumped over, his cheek plastered to a desk, his floppy brown hair falling over peacefully closed eyes. Impervious to the chaos of the makeshift classroom. Justin hadn’t realized he was staring until Tony slammed a textbook down on his desk and JC startled upright. Confused, a bleary-eyed JC looked at Tony and then in Justin’s direction, the left side of his face pink and indented from being smushed against a spiral notebook on the desktop. Justin turned away, focused his attention to the on-set teacher who he only now realized had been speaking to him since he walked in the room.

Justin soon understood JC’s frequent sleepiness was a go-to joke amongst the kids on the MMC set. He didn’t hesitate to join in the teasing and enjoyed coming up with creatively torturous ways to awaken JC from his unauthorized slumbers. It was a good way to build a friendship, Justin thought, as he blew an airhorn into a director’s megaphone positioned a mere six inches from JC’s ear. The MMC vocal coach gave him a lot of shit for that one—JC needed his hearing in order to sing, apparently. But after the shock wore off, JC didn’t seem to mind, and the two of them fell into an easy friendship. Easier for Justin maybe, as JC never retaliated for any of Justin’s pranks, just benignly complained but then laughed and moved on. JC was a serious type, Justin realized after a few weeks of working together. It puzzled Justin—he didn’t have any other friends like that, but he didn’t have any friends as talented as JC Chasez either. He figured he could learn a thing or twelve from the guy, whose music knowledge was broader than anyone’s, it seemed. Not to mention he charmed every girl he talked to, and there were a lot of pretty girls to choose from at the Disney Channel. The kids in his year were nice enough, but JC was _somebody_. Somebody Justin needed to get to know. And he did.

As the MMC began to wrap up its final season, JC announced that he and his father were moving back home to Maryland indefinitely. Justin wasn’t having it. 

“There’s no _music_ in Maryland!”

JC shrugged. “I know. But it doesn’t seem like LA is gonna work out. And I mean, I miss my family and hanging out with my friends and things like that.”

“But _I’m_ your best friend, C,” Justin whined. Justin was the only kid on the planet who could whine endearingly and he knew it.

JC smiled and looked down at Justin, his brow darkening his deep-set eyes. “Yeah you are, J. But I don’t know what else to do right now. I’m kinda out of options.”

“Then what are you gonna do?

“College, maybe? I could study music, maybe, or—.”

“_Study _music? Dude, we’ve spent years making music here. You’re so beyond studying.”

“Well, aren’t you going back to Tennessee? I know your mom’s not taking her little baby to big bad LA.”

Justin shoved JC in the shoulder. He hated to be treated like a little kid (unless it was convenient for him). Then came the eureka moment. He took off down the hall in search of his mother, leaving a bewildered JC in his dust, a light breeze stirred in the aftermath of the sudden motion. His basketball shoe left a black mark on the white linoleum floor.

* * *

It came as no surprise to Justin that he had little trouble convincing the parents to let JC join the Timberlake-Harless family in their move to Tennessee. JC was soon-to-be eighteen, so his parents couldn’t do much more than raise a mild question or two, and Justin’s mother loved JC already and was thrilled to have him. She enjoyed taking in stray MMC kids when needed. Besides, Nashville made the most sense for both of them—they needed to be making music, and Nashville was a place where people made music.

Despite no longer being subject to the crazy on-set schedule of school, dancing, blocking, rehearsing, recording, and performing, JC stayed sleepy. In fact, it seemed to Justin that JC got even sleepier—he’d sleep until noon if Lynn let him. Justin wasn’t exactly an early riser, but get a salad bowl of Captain Crunch in him and he was good to go. JC could drag around for an hour before really waking up. That wasn’t gonna fly in Justin’s house.

Justin didn’t bother JC too much the first couple weeks, let him catch up on all the sleep he’d missed due to work. But he got sick of waiting around real quick. One Saturday, Justin got up bright and early determined to engage JC in a rousing morning game of basketball before the southern summer heat made it impossible. He unceremoniously busted into JC’s room, basketball in tow, and unsurprisingly, JC didn’t move a muscle.

It struck Justin how familiar this image was to the first time he’d seen JC almost two years ago—JC’s heavy-lidded eyes shut, untroubled. Long dark eyelashes almost touched his cheek. And that hair, the long wavy hair, even longer now that Disney’s hairstylist wasn’t keeping it in check, hung down, threatening to obscure his face. Asleep, JC looked closer to Justin’s age. 

Justin shook his head and jumped on the bed with a war cry, bonking JC on the head with the basketball.

“_Justin_,” JC whined into his pillow, and Justin couldn’t help but find it endearing.

* * *

When he walked into the expansive white house, in step with JC, Justin couldn’t believe his luck. They were going to be living here, together, in Orlando, all expenses paid. Making music. Making waves. No, it wasn’t luck—he’d earned it. _They _had earned it. And they were gonna be _big_.

It was easy for Justin and JC to fall back into the rhythm of a highly regimented performance and rehearsal schedule. Sure, they were a couple of goofs together, but they were trained goofs. Goofs with technique. Chris, Joey, and Lance were good, no doubt about it, each one playing an integral part in the five-part vocal harmony group they had formed, but it was clear they were playing catch up with JC and Justin, the professionals. They’d get there, though—they’d have to get there. The demo performance was around the corner and all five ‘NSync mothers were handing out flyers at Disney World left and right. Go-time approached without hesitation. 

It didn’t take long for the guys to notice JC’s talent—his vocal and dancing talent, of course, but also his talent for falling asleep at a moment’s notice.

“He’s hyped like hyena one minute,” Joey noted to the other guys over the sounds of the Super Nintendo game he played with Justin. “And the next he’s like … well, like that.”

They all gazed over at JC, asleep on the carpeted floor next to Justin, where he had lied down while waiting for his turn with the NES. 

“I’m tellin’ ya, the guy’s too wound up. He spins himself up like a top and then crashes.” Chris swooped in on Justin and wrenched the controller out of his hands. Justin started to put up a fight, but found himself strangely concerned that he would wake JC. He gave up the controller and moved to take Chris’s former spot on the living room sofa next to Lance.

“JC’s not wound up,” Justin defended. “He just knows to sleep when he has the chance. Y’all will see when we’re selling out arenas all over the world, you’ll fall asleep on the floor, too.”

Chris’s eyes focused in on the 8-bit screen of the game. “Sorry, Timber-Timberlake, but you can’t tell me the man’s not wound tighter than a two-dollar watch—he never laughs at my jokes, and don’t even try to tell me I’m not hilarious.”

“Oh, but can’t I try?” Lance began, only to be quickly cut off by Chris.

“—Don’t make me come over there, Lansten, I’ve got my claws sharpened and I’m ready to pounce.”

“I don’t think he knows you’re joking most of the time, Chris,” Justin answered.

Joey and Chris lowered their controllers and looked back over at the sleeping JC. Chris turned to Justin and Lance. “I fear there’s more wrong with him than we initially thought.”

* * *

As soon as they got off the plane to record their first album in Sweden, the record company swooped them up for an image consult. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time for JC, Justin knew. The stress and excitement of signing with a German label, plus the rush to get over to Europe, on top of the jet lag, not to mention his eagerness to please, meant JC was awake but hardly coherent, bordering on loony. He’d agree to anything in this state.

Back at the hotel, Justin planned on rooming with Chris. Their ongoing Mortal Kombat battle on the GameBoy was really heating up, and they were ready to play into the wee hours of the morning. Lynn quickly squashed that and insisted Justin room with the relatively more responsible JC so he’d actually get some rest—it was either that or stay in her room, and Justin was not about to share a room with his mother when he was now a recording artist signed to a major label.

But god, it was hard to contain his laughter, looking at JC asleep on top of the white comforter, his once luscious hair now shorn down into what was allegedly a trendy European style reminiscent of Julius Caesar. Justin always envied JC’s hair—he didn’t love his own tight curls and secretly wished he had hair that made girl’s swoon. But this haircut really evened the playing field for them, so Justin decided he liked it.

The pained groan that emanated from the bathroom the next morning after JC finally rolled out of bed and got a proper, well-rested look at himself sent Justin into hysterical giggles.

* * *

JC and Justin roomed together throughout Europe. It was clear to Justin that JC could take the ribbing from him—he’d tolerated it for years, after all—but he was no match for Chris or even Joey. He could never be sure if they were joking around or really making fun of him, and JC, although good-humored, was sensitive to criticism.

“Hey, man, I’m not sensitive—you’re just, you know, _whatever_.”

“Another searing retort from Joshua Chasez,” Chris chided over breakfast during an interview with a German teen magazine.

“Don’t print that,” Lance noted to the interviewer.

* * *

After playing a small festival in Zurich, the older guys went out to a nightclub, leaving Justin, whose mother insisted he would not go clubbing in Switzerland at sixteen, to entertain himself at the hotel. JC offered to stay back, but Justin decided to use up all the selflessness he’d saved up in himself and told him to join the guys. He holed up in his room for the evening, embracing the impending boredom.

Before midnight, Justin heard the sound of the keycard in the door over his headphones. He ripped them off his ears as JC walked in the door, looking a little dazed.

“You’re home early,” Justin said.

JC sat on the edge of his bed, facing Justin, hands in his lap, eyes pointed in a vague direction. “Tired.”

Justin laughed. “Lightweight.”

“Noo,” JC slurred. He smiled sloppily. “Maybe, kinda.”

“Didn’t you drink when you were a Mouseketeer?”

JC rubbed lazily at his eyes. “Yeah, not really though. My dad really got on my case one time and I didn’t wanna do it again.” He smiled in what Justin figured was meant to be a devilish manner, but it was really just an exaggerated version of his usual wide grin. “Legal here, though.”

“You’re a wild man,” Justin said with an exaggerated head motion. Then, “Your hair’s growing out.”

“Thank GOD!” JC shouted, startling Justin, then stretched his arms out wide and promptly fell backwards and asleep.

“Jace?” Justin said, not used to drunken behavior, especially from JC. He walked over to JC’s bed, leaned over him. “C? You good, right?”

A pleasant murmur escaped JC’s lips and he settled deeper into the mattress.

“You should consider using the blankets sometime, maybe even pajamas,” Justin said to no one listening. He reached over to remove JC’s boots then sat on the foot of the bed. JC was cute drunk, his cheeks all flushed, his mouth still formed into a slightly parted smile instead of his usual dead-to-the-world sleep face. Justin moved further up on the bed. He placed a hand on his friend’s chest. “JC?” Silence. He moved closer. JC breathed deeply, his chest moving Justin’s hand up and back down. “You’re gonna be a nightmare in the morning.” He nodded. “I’m’ma let Lance deal with it. _Gute nacht_.” He leaped into his own bed and switched off the lamp.

* * *

Gone were the days of tiny hotel rooms or shoving fifteen people into a single tour bus for months at a time. They were motherfucking *NSYNC—even the Backstreet Boys couldn’t touch them. Now they did things their own way, the way Justin had envisioned from the start, when he first moved back to Orlando with JC to join an a cappella group. They traveled in style with a goddamn fleet.

Lance, Joey, and Steve got their own bus, mercifully. All the weird road snacks Joey ate made him less than pleasant to be around in close quarters, and Lance’s exotic animal collection was too much for JC’s delicate sensibilities to handle. Lance and Joey were joined at the hip anyway. That left Justin, Chris, and JC to make up the Fun Bus. Yeah, JC got on them occasionally about being fit and ready for their shoots and sound-checks, but he’d finally loosened the reins enough to trust that Johnny would do his job and make sure everything was in place for them. The lawsuit had stressed him out more than the other guys, even Lance, and while making the new album he was hyper-aware of everything everyone did, obsessed with maintaining creative control, determined not to let the wool get pulled over their eyes again. After selling over two million records in one week and a setting up the show down to the letter, JC could relax.

For once, Chris fell asleep first, after the show in San Antonio. He was really getting old. He curled up in his bunk with Busta nestled in his arms. JC pulled Chris’s bunk curtain closed on his way from the fridge to the back of the bus where Justin was watching _The Matrix_ on their DVD player.

“I love this movie,” JC said.

“Never would’ve guessed,” Justin said, the sarcasm emphasized with a head roll.

“Shut up,” JC said, and laughed. He ripped the bedazzled bandana off Justin’s head and sat on the floor at his feet, leaning lazily against his legs. They sat in near silence for a while, the TV’s volume turned low. Their bodies buzzed for hours after a show and loud noises were too much for their sensitive ears to tolerate.

“This is gonna last forever, C.”

JC peered up at Justin. “Yeah, it is,” he said, and pushed himself up off the floor to sit next to him on the couch.

“_Whoa_,” Keanu said on the television screen, and they both laughed.

Justin put an arm around JC’s neck and JC settled in, resting his head on Justin’s shoulder. 

“We’re lucky if this lasts another year,” Justin said.

“Two at least.” JC giggled, his deliriously tired giggle. “No sense in worrying about that now. We got a _lot _of shows left to do and it’s our job to kill it for those people every night.”

Justin inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. He wanted to say something more, but hesitated, and soon he could feel JC fall asleep on him, like a light switch turned off.

* * *

Justin didn’t understand why he felt the need to see JC _right now, immediately_. Hiatus meant a break, meant not running into each other, literally, every time they turned around, meant relaxing and not thinking about work for a while. That’s what everyone agreed to. Joey took the opportunity to get all domestic, Lance went home to Mississippi, Chris partied hard throughout Orlando. Justin couldn’t stop thinking. And he knew JC was never going to truly take a break from music for any length of time, no matter what he said.

He found JC exactly where he expected to on a weekday evening. Justin let himself into JC’s house and headed straight for the music room. The door ajar, he watched JC at the piano playing notes Justin recognized from a demo JC had played him a month earlier. He hadn’t been happy with it then and couldn’t figure out the problem. He sang a wordless melody, his finger pointing to the ceiling as he reached for a high note, then scribbled something down in his song book. 

Heat rose from Justin’s chest up into his face and he considered getting out of there before JC got a chance to see him. _Get it together, Timberlake_, he thought, and pushed the door open, careful to make as much noise as possible to announce his presence. 

JC damn near fell off the piano bench. “Jesus, Justin,” he managed after catching his breath.

Justin laughed with his whole body, the nervousness suddenly forgotten. “I been making you jump like that since ’93. I still got it!”

“Thought you would’ve outgrown it by now,” JC said with a head tilt and strained smile as he stood up to join Justin in a hug.

“So much for that vacation.” Justin clapped JC on the back.

“I’ll get to it. Tyler’s coming in Friday for his school break. But, I can’t get this song out of my head. I can hear it, but I can’t pin it down. I think it’d be perfect for the next record. Or, you know, whatever.” JC avoided eye contact, resumed his seat at the piano.

Justin sat next to him, facing away from the keys. “The guys hate me.”

JC plunked a few solitary notes. “Nobody hates you. You’re Justin Timberlake.”

Justin leaned back, creating a cacophony as he smashed his elbow into the keys so he could look JC in the face. “Can we talk, like, without this thing between us?”

* * *

JC’s bedroom was larger than most living rooms. Justin wondered if it was JC’s mother or ex-girlfriend who’d done the decorating. The sofa upon which they sat looked like something Justin’s mother would love to have in her company-only den. 

“Really, Just, nobody’s mad at you.” Justin sent JC a pointed look. “Okay, maybe Lance is sore. But, who knows what goes on in his head. He’ll get over it.”

Justin sat crosslegged on the sofa, too tense to sprawl out like he usually would. He leaned forward with poor posture, looked at JC from under a furrowed brow. “What do you think? I know what you said, but.”

JC stretched his legs out so his socked feet almost touched Justin’s and propped his back up against the arm of the sofa. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. You should make your own music. _Do your thing_, right?” He smiled but his eyes didn’t squint up like he meant it.

“The guys, though.” Justin drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them.

“They’ll get it when they hear the record. Justin, if you wanted to make this record and didn’t, just jumped into another *NSYNC record, you’d be doing all of us a disservice anyway. The fans will know if your heart’s not in the music, and that’s not the kinda band we are. It’s not like *NSYNC is going anywhere, right?”

“Right,” Justin said. After a pause, “Yeah. Of course. I just—I don’t think they’re ever gonna get it, C. I love the guys, they’re family, but.” He pulled himself closer to JC. JC pulled his knees up and mirrored Justin’s movement, closing the space between them. “You and me.” He reached out, brushing his fingertips against JC’s chest and then pointing back at himself. “We’re not like them. We’re different, we’re—we’re.”

JC smiled, his eyes squinting up this time. “I know.”

“And if this record does okay, Jive will see, and—it could pave the way for the guys, too. You. I know the execs have their heads up their asses most of the time, but everyone knows there’s no *NSYNC without you. Not even close. I’m like a test run, right? A guinea pig. All goes well then you could put out a solo album next year and from there—it’s a whole new world all over again, who knows where it could go.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You better.” Justin kicked at JC’s foot. “I’ve seen your hard drive. I don’t know how the hell you deal with making so many songs and never letting them out of the studio. I’d be going nuts trying to get them released. I am going nuts.”

JC shrugged. “I will, you know, when the time is right. I gotta figure out what I want for me, or another artist, or *NSYNC. But you know what you want for you, so do it.”

“You know you can’t lead a boy band forever either, right? You’re too good, JC. I want this for me first, not gonna lie.”

JC rolled his eyes. “Like I wouldn’t know anyway.”

“But I want it for you, too. Hell, I don’t know even know where I’d be without you.”

JC grasped Justin’s wrist. “I have a feeling you’d still be Justin Timberlake.”

Justin placed his free hand over JC’s. “You’re better than all of us and you know it. Don’t fuck it up.”

JC put his face in his hands for a moment then looked back up, his eyes meeting Justin’s. “All right. Only as long as you stop trying to justify every decision you make to me, or the guys, or whoever.”

Justin started to say something, then simply nodded. “Heard.”

“This is the heaviest conversation I’ve had in my bedroom in a while.”

Justin reared back with laughter. JC resisted, but laugher was always contagious to him and soon he broke and joined in Justin’s hysterics. After a while it died down and silence began to fill the room again. 

“Do you have to get back to your song or do you wanna—can we hang out?”

JC walked across the room, rifled through the cabinet beneath his wall-mounted television. “I got the new _Buffy_ game for Xbox.”

Justin shook his head, wiping a laughter tear from his eye. “You are so weird.”

“It’s a good show,” JC insisted, setting up the console.

“Repeat: You are so. weird.” 

“Man, have you _seen _Sarah Michelle Gellar?” 

“How ‘bout we play _007_? I’ll even let you be Bond.”

“Oh, you’ll _let_ me be Bond? This is my house, J-T.” 

“Aw, don’t you start callin’ me that.”

JC sat in front of the TV and held out a controller behind him. “You gonna play or what?”

Justin begrudgingly joined JC on the floor and took the controller. “Actually, you know what? It’s gettin’ kinda late.” He stretched his arms up over head with a yawn, brought one arm down around JC’s shoulders. “Maybe we just go to bed. We could check out that farmer’s market bullshit you like in the morning.”

“God forbid you eat a vegetable at breakfast.” JC dropped the controller. “You can take your pick of the guest rooms.”

Justin placed his controller gently on the floor. “Or I could sleep in here.”

“Or you could sleep in here.”

* * *

Justin started out on the fancy sofa, all set up with pillows and blankets to snuggle. That didn’t last long. The space between them was suffocating. Justin realized that was what had driven him to JC’s home that night. A hiatus was one thing, but Justin couldn’t release a solo album if it was going to put any more distance between himself and JC. He felt more assured now, but still didn’t want to leave JC’s side, at least not yet. Nighttime conversations often disappear into the ether come morning, and Justin needed to make sure this one stuck.

Propped up on his elbow, Justin studied JC’s face, illuminated by the rising sun through the window. Asleep, he looked like that seventeen-year-old kid from the MMC days. Justin supposed JC would always be that kid in his mind, on some level. He thought back to himself as a doofy thirteen-year-old Mouseketeer and hoped JC didn’t share that same sentiment about him. He raked his fingers through JC’s grown out curls, stroked his thumb along the hairline at JC’s temple.

JC’s eyelids fluttered, then remained half open, heavy with sleep. “I like that,” he whispered, his voice thick, and his eyes shut again.

Justin kneaded his scalp. “You awake?” He drew his finger across JC’s brow, then down his nose. He traced JC’s bottom lip with his thumb. His younger self might’ve taken this tranquil moment as an invitation to squeeze a whoopee cushion in JC’s face, or adorn his face and body with household knick-knacks. Now all he wanted was to admire. He lied on JC’s pillow, so close he could hear JC’s quiet, rhythmic breaths, and started writing a song in his head.


End file.
